Only two weeks ago I linked to Courtenay's "Sample Rails App", a bare-bones Rails application featuring authentication, timezone support, and all sorts of other goodies. I'm compelled to give a small link to his newest branch, however, as it's a sample app but with full SSL (HTTPS) support. This sort of thing isn't the easiest thing to put together unless you're experienced in deployment, so I'm sure it'll come in useful to many. It comes with a lighttpd configuration file, all ready to go, along with a self-signed certificate.

I constantly get mails from various readers who are looking for Rails developers for their projects. As I don't do this myself, I have to keep giving out a list of Rails developers I know and trust or have had good feedback about. I figured I should make a blog post with a list instead, so I could point people to it, and keep it updated as a resource for everyone to use. You can even leave "review" type comments if you've used any of these guys. The list is not very long, but here we go..

Data Structures and Algorithms with Object-Oriented Design Patterns in Ruby is an online book (free to read!) by Dr. Bruno R. Preiss, an incredibly well qualified engineer and computer scientist. It covers all of the various data structures and algorithms that beginning Computer Science students have to learn, but from a Ruby perspective and using object oriented design patterns.
The book itself is now a few years old, but I've only just come across it and it still seems relevant although, rather sadly, the on-page code is in graphics only (a ZIP file containing the source is available) and feels like a line-by-line conversion from C++ rather than true Ruby code. Still, if computer science, data structures, and algorithms elude you to any degree, and you want to learn about them while following Ruby code, it's a good place to start. There are also versions for C++, Java, C# and Python available from Bruno's homepage.

Just an hour ago, Thomas Enebo announced the release of JRuby 0.9.9, a stabilization release in anticipation of JRuby 1.0. You can download it directly from the JRuby file directory.

(photo credit: RBerteig)

Slideshare is like the YouTube or Scribd of presentations and slideshows and it features a few good Ruby and Rails related slideshows that are worth flicking through. This post links to some of the best: